I'll Hold My Breath For You
by Konsui's Little Brother
Summary: The X-Men gave up hope on ever finding Kurt again, he'd been gone too long for there to be any trail left, but Todd hasn't. He's holding his breath now because he doesn't know if he'll make it in time.


A/N: Please, please, please forgive me for using the same song twice! I was listening to this song when the plot-bunnies attacked me with their evil carrots of doom and I couldn't not write it. The setting for this might be a little confusing so I'm going to explain it here.

This is my own little version of how X-Men:Evolution merges with my own version of X-Men: 2. I think it turned out pretty good.

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Breath air you're not used to, tread floors you don't fall through,  
Make waves...

Todd had never spent much time at the Institue as a child and, even though he had spent more time there recently, he couldn't get over how different it was. Everywhere that he'd lived had been cold and impersonal, always telling him that he didn't belong, and the scent of blood and pain was never gone from the air. He'd gotten used to it. He hadn't gotten used to being welcomed, to being cared for, to the fact that blood in the air wasn't normal here.

He didn't have to worry about the twist and turns that life had given him before. He didn't have to but he still did. It wasn't normal for him, had never been normal to him, to not worry about falling. Before when he fell, he fell hard. When he fell here, and he fell more often than most of the X-Men knew, he always had someone to help him back up.

The day that he had turned up at the Institute, a raggedy back-pack thrown over one shoulder, had thrown everyone for a loop. Himself included. He hadn't planned on asking to join them, and he certaintly didn't expect them to let him in, but they had. Most of the X-Men hadn't forgiven him, Cyclops held one heck of a grudge, and he was afraid of most of the others, like Wolverine, but he'd made the waves for a reason and he wasn't backing out.

_You crash a symbol hard  
Follow no one, always play the wrong card_

Before Todd had met the X-Men, before Mystique had roped him into the Brotherhood, even before he'd moved to the pit that was Bayville...He had always been the Toad. These days things had changed. He was still the Toad, older and with different views on everything, but life was different now. Not by much, but it had still changed.

He would be the first on his team, his old team because they weren't there any more, to admit that he hadn't agreed with any of the crap that Magneto was spewing. Thing was, he didn't believe in anything that Xavier spewed either. So he did the only thing that he could do back then...

Todd had followed the first guy that had given him a second chance, that was what Magneto had promised him and every other member of the Brotherhood, so he'd taken it. By the time that he'd realized what a mistake he'd made, he couldn't back out. He was stuck there because he'd played the wrong card. That was something that he'd done a lot back then.

_Waste days, in foreign places  
Shed lights, on your better side  
Reassure me that you'll wait for me, wait for me as long as it takes!_

Back when he was the only member in the Brotherhood, Todd would spend days wandering around Bayville. He wasted more time doing that, walking around with no real goal, than he did anything else.

His whole life people had told him that he wasn't good for anything, he was scum, and he couldn't find any reason to argue with them. Then he met Kurt. He was the first person in a long time, maybe even the first person that Todd had ever met, that saw good in him. The first person that really gave him a second chance. And Todd had no idea how to act.

Than one day Kurt had dissapeared. The X-Men wouldn't tell him where he went, and Todd suspected that they didn't know, and Kurt had left no letter for him. That was the day that Todd realized how much Kurt really meant to him. The other members of the Brotherhood moved on, Lance had invited Todd to go with him, but Todd stayed at the Boarding House. He would wait for Kurt just like the blue mutant had waited for him, and hopefully things would go back to the way they used to be.

_And I'll hold my breath, I'll hold my breath_

Todd waited for years, he watched the X-Men and the Brotherhood scatter, and he stayed right where he was. He didn't leave Bayville, even though it was all he'd wanted to do for years, and he didn't give up on Kurt coming back. He held his breath and waited even when the X-Men had moved on.

_Until you see me in your dreams  
WE'll stay awake beneath the trees  
We'll watch the buildings turn to dust  
A sky of diamonds just for us_

Todd didn't know what Kurt would be like when he finally turned up, he didn't know whether the older boy would want anything to do with him anymore, he didn't know what anything would be like.

He did know what he hoped would happen. He hoped that Kurt wouldn't have changed, at least not by a lot, but if he had than Todd would do his best to let him know that not everyone had given up on him...

And if he was lucky than he would be able to tell Kurt just what he really meant to Todd. He'd tell that Raggedy Plush-Toy everything that Todd had thought up over the years, every last sappy thought, and then he'd make sure that Kurt never left again._  
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_You are the risk I'll always take  
The only branch I'll never break  
Those fears we'll blow them all away_

Todd had grown up trying to make himself invisible. He'd tried his best to stay in the background and not get himself killed. That meant that he'd trained himself not to take risks, not to get in the middle of things bigger than him, and yet here he was taking the biggest risk in the world. And he didn't care.

Kurt wouldn't be the same when he came back, even though that was what Todd wanted more than anything, because everyone changed sooner or later. And Todd didn't care. He'd do whatever he could to help Kurt when he came back because he was the one person that he could never, and would never, watch break.

But he wasn't stupid. Todd knew that when Kurt came back, when Todd told him what had to be said, he wouldn't just be hated because he was a mutant. He'd be facing more prejudice, more hate and anger, than he'd ever faced before. And Todd didn't care. He'd take whatever the world wanted to throw at him, he'd take it smiling, because Kurt would know and that was all that really mattered.__

Fight fires in your best clothes, touch skin with your eyes closed  
Chase thunder...  
With the volume down  
Pack a suitcase, wonder to the next town

There were days when Todd would wake up, stare at the run-down cieling of the Boarding House, and think about every stupid thing that he'd ever done and everything that he'd ever said.

He'd never hated Kurt, not even when he hated everyone else in the X-Men, but he'd acted like he had more than enough. He'd practically told Kurt to drop-dead. He'd ruined his chances with the one girl that didn't care he was blue and fuzzy. He practically turned the whole team of X-Men against him. He'd never apologized for any of it. And unless he found Kurt, he'd never be able too.

So Todd did the one thing that he promised himself, and everyone else he knew, that he would never do. He packed up his stuff and he went to Xavier's because it was the only thing that left that he could do.

_Force quit, on your losing streak  
Solve a riddle in a magazine, be tongue in cheek  
Tell me that we're still too young, that we're still too young and I'll my tongue_

He marched into the Institute, pushed past Cyclops and Storm and Wolverine and everyone else that he'd always tried to stay away from, and demanded that Xavier tell him everything that they knew about Kurt dissapearing.

He spent weeks at the Institute, the one place that he'd sworn never to stay in, looking over the files they had. No one spoke to Todd and the only times that they saw him was when he wandered into the kitchen to grab food. He never looked at them, not even a glance, because his eyes were always glued to some piece of paper or another. And then he figured it out...

Xavier told him not to go. He told Todd that he was too young, too inexpierenced, and that he would have Logan lead the oldest members of the X-Men to rescue Kurt. Todd almost told them all to drop-dead, almost told them all that if they wanted to save Kurt than they shouldn't have given up on looking for him, but he didn't. Instead he took off on his own, hot-wired the quickest looking motorcycle in their garage, and left before the X-Men had even been briefed.__

Until you see me in your dreams  
We'll stay awake beneath the trees  
We'll watch the buildings turn to dust  
A sky of diamonds just for us

He'd never gotten to say good-bye. It was an odd thought to be whirling around in Kurt's head right now but he couldn't shake it from his mind. When he should be worrying about what 'They' would do to him next, what they would make him do, he was worrying about Todd.

Todd...He was one of the more recurring thoughts in Kurt's mind. His mind didn't work right for the most part, his thoughts were too clouded by the drugs that 'They' kept him hyped up on, but everynow and then he'd get a semi-clear spell for a few moments and his mind would slip to the younger mutant. His mind flickered to his team-mates every now and then but Todd's image was the only constant in his jumbled mind.

Kurt could hear 'Them' coming now, their foot-steps heavy against the ground, and he curled in on himself with a whimper. He didn't want to be here anymore. He wanted to be outside. He curled in on himself a little tighter as a muffled shout drifted into the room he was in.

_You are the risk I'll always take  
The only branch I'll never break  
Those fears we'll blow them all away_

If Todd had been thinking right, he would have realized just how much of an idiot he was for charging into Stryker's Lab on his own. If he was thinking then he might have noticed how out numbered he was, or that the guards he were fighting were armed, and he probably would have noticed when the X-Men burst into the lab behind him. As it was, the risk he was taking was worth it.

Todd slammed his foot into someone's gut and leaped onto the ceiling. This was taking too much time, he'd have to come back and beat the guards once he got to Kurt. He couldn't let them break him, not anymore than they already had.

He could vaugly hear the fight going on behind him, the X-Men keeping the gaurds busy, but his mind was focused more on navigating the maze of stone passage-ways. They were narrow and dark and he couldn't help the surge of hatred directed at the X-Men that ripped through his chest. They'd given up on looking and left Kurt here!

_I'm here, I'm here to save you  
No fall, I will swim to save you_

The door to Kurt's 'cell' fell with one well placed kick from Todd, hitting the ground with an echoing clang, and he found himself frozen at the entrance. There was a sudden fear at the back of his mind, a fear that he hadn't made it in time and that he had failed the one person that ment more to him than anything else, and he could feel his heart skip a beat at the thought.

This was the most important thing that he'd ever had to do and he wouldn't, he couldn't, fail. He had to have made it in time. He had to be able to save Kurt. He had to tell him that he hadn't been given up on, that someone had looked for him and that everything would be all right now.

Todd had to let Kurt know that he loved him.

_Those fears we'll blow them all away_

Kurt had given up hope of any one finding him a long time ago. He didn't like thinking that everyone had given up on him, because they were his friends and they wouldn't do that to him, but he'd been in this cell for so long that he'd given up on anyone finding him. That meant that the Todd crouched in fornt of him, blurry image filled with more concern than he'd ever seen on the other mutant, wasn't real. It was just some cruel joke that his mind was playing on him.

Todd couldn't be here, in the lab or the cell, because no one knew where he was. No one would find him here and he'd never get out, no matter how much he wanted to be free again. The figure in front of him said something and Kurt curled in on himself again. He didn't want to see this...This thing! He didn't want to have to hear a delusion, didn't want to get his hopes up over nothing, didn't want to - he felt his heart stop when a hand was placed gently on his shoulder, Todd's voice breaking through the walls that Kurt had built around himself, "I'm gettin' ya out of here, Fuzzy."

It was real. The fact didn't register in Kurt's mind until he felt arms around his stomache and himself being pulled towards a warm body. Someone had found him. Todd had come to save him. For some reason that just seemed right, that Todd had found him and not someone else, but his shocked mind didn't stay on that thought for more than a few seconds. Kurt wrapped his arms around Todd as tightly as he could and the only thought that his mind could hold onto, would hold onto, was that he was safe. He was safe and Todd was there and everything would be fine now.


End file.
